Michael Dibdin: A Rich Full Death

Ignoring the question, Talenti seated himself at the head of a long wooden table in the centre of the room. His constables stood guard at either side, and the rest of us remained grouped uneasily together, like schoolboys before the master. And so the interrogation began.

The first point to be established related to the whereabouts of Mr Joseph Eakin: he had left Florence that morning to visit an elderly aunt of his who lives in Siena, and was not expected to return until the following day. That this was in no way remarkable, I was able to confirm from my own knowledge. The aunt suffers from some suitably genteel ailment, and-there being some question of an inheritance-Joseph Eakin has gone fortnightly to commiserate with her throughout his stay here.

In the absence of her husband Mrs Eakin had no plans either to entertain or be entertained, and she had accordingly dismissed all the servants except her own maid until the following morning. Beatrice had been retained to dress her mistress and to prepare a light luncheon, after which she had been given the rest of the day off, with instructions to return about supper time.

From that moment on, it at first appeared, Isabel had been alone in the villa. Shortly afterwards, however, a very important clue emerged in the testimony of the gate-keeper, who deposed that an unknown woman had called at the villa at about four o’clock, leaving about twenty minutes later-and despite the strenuous cross-questioning of the police official, he would in no way be shaken from this testimony. He had opened the gates to let her in, he said, and closed them again after her departure. There had been no other visitors.

This, therefore, brought us to twenty past four or thereabouts. Commissioner Talenti had astutely remarked that the victim’s clothing was extremely damp. As I have already observed, there had been but one fall of rain all day, as brief as it was intense, and this was over by five o’clock. Before that the weather was unnaturally close and still for the time of year, afterwards it grew increasingly windy, but with no further precipitation. It therefore seems clear that Isabel could not have died later than five o’clock-a mere forty minutes after her mysterious visitor left.

The rest is quickly told. Returning at half past seven, Beatrice found the house deserted and the lamps guttering in the wind blowing in through the large glass doors which lay open on to the steps leading to the garden. As she went to close them, the girl caught sight of a strange white form apparently hovering several feet above the ground in the moonlit garden. As always with old houses, there are rumours that the villa is haunted-in this case by a beauteous maiden murdered long ago by a jealous lover, or some such nonsense. Directly the maid caught sight of the white shape glimmering in the garden she naturally assumed it to be the apparition, and fled to the gate-keeper’s lodge. The old man, a sturdy old Tuscan peasant who would bargain with the devil himself, returned alone to investigate, discovered Isabel’s body hanging from the tree, and went to fetch the authorities.

And Beatrice? She, left alone once more, began to realise the problems that her mistress’s death was likely to cause her. Isabel Eakin was a foreigner; where foreigners are involved there are always complications; these are not likely to be diminished when the foreigner in question is young, beautiful and has met a violent death. The remedy, clearly, was to fight fire with fire — bring in another foreigner to deal with these problems in the high-handed foreign way. And so she sent a lad from a nearby farm to summon Mr Browning.

Yes, indeed! I too sat bolt upright and wide awake at this astonishing intelligence. So did the police official.

‘We are so fortunate as to have several thousand foreigners here in Florence,’ he commented, with a flicker of a smile. ‘Why, out of so many, did you send for this one?’

A pointing finger reduced Mr Browning to the status of an inanimate courtroom exhibit.

And now, for the first time, Beatrice faltered-fatally. Thus far everything had been said calmly, smoothly, naturally; with some understandable confusion in places, but no sense whatever of embarrassment or difficulty. Yet now her eyes roved restlessly about, determinedly avoiding Mr Browning’s-who for his part was looking at the girl with unusual intensity.

‘I don’t know,’ she murmured at last.

‘Don’t know?’

Talenti had dropped his teasing manner.

‘Do you think I can be fobbed off with such stuff, my girl? If you can’t do better than that, I’ll have you locked up in the Bargello until you do know. But first I’ll give you one more chance. Why did you send for this man?’

Browning made to speak, but the official peremptorily silenced him. The maid started to weep. At length she spoke, almost inaudibly.

‘He was a friend.’

‘Oh, he was, was he? Your friend?’

I glanced at Browning, who sat strained forward, the image of a man in an agony of suspense.

‘A friend of the family,’ Beatrice replied between sobs.

‘But what are you saying, you stupid girl?’ the gate-keeper suddenly burst out. ‘What friend of the family? I see everyone who comes to this house. For example, I know you well enough,’ he said, turning to me. ‘But as for this man’-pointing at Browning ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life!’

The police official stared bleakly at Beatrice.

‘So, you have lied. That much is sure. Do you know the penalty for lying to the authorities?’ He paused, terribly, for a moment. ‘Now then, for the third and last time I ask you-why did you send for this man?’

The poor girl looked at Browning, and then at the policeman, and then back at Browning. I had not noticed before-one doesn’t, of course, with servants-how beautiful she was, with very distinct features, a full figure, and long raven-black hair. Finally she spoke, in a wavering voice.

‘He was a friend … of the signora.’

And she nodded at the table where Isabel’s body lay stretched out.

The mocking little smile appeared for an instant on Talenti’s features, and was gone.

‘I see,’ he replied blandly. ‘Well, Signor Browning-what have you to say?’

After a long silence Browning asked if he could speak to the official alone, and to my surprise-and disappointment-this was granted. Browning then quickly scribbled a note, which he handed to me with the following words: ‘Mr Booth, I implore you, as one gentleman to another, to deliver this to my wife as soon as possible. Will you do so much for me? It will prevent much needless suffering. But say nothing of what has happened here, I beseech you! I am, of course, completely innocent-as will very soon be established.’

I expressed my wholehearted belief in this, and promised to deliver his note immediately. Then, having supplied my address to the police, I reluctantly left the villa.

On my way home I tried to make some sense of what I had witnessed, and in particular of Browning’s declaration that he was completely innocent-which very naturally provoked the thought ‘innocent of what?’ Of any relationship with the deceased woman? Then why should Beatrice so plainly have tried to conceal this fact? Why struggle to conceal from the police-with all the dangers this entailed-a relationship which did not exist?

No, surely what Mr Browning must have meant is that there was a connection between him and Isabel, but that it was not a guilty one. The fact remains, however, that it looks bad-and this impression is not diminished by the fact that he is evidently striving to conceal the whole affair from his wife. This was confirmed by his note, which I took the liberty of reading before handing it in-falsehoods were in the air, after all, and I felt justified in knowing just exactly which one I might be taking responsibility for spreading. ‘I have been detained longer than expected-do not wait up for me-will explain all tomorrow’ was the gist of the thing. Fortunately I was spared any need to tell untruths myself, merely handing Browning’s note to the servant and continuing home to bed.